Full disclosure, when the opportunity to review this book came down the pipeline I got it with the pitch, “I’ve never seen nor heard of Bio-Dead (2009).” I’ll review the Bio-Dead novelization on standalone merit, then watch the movie it’s based on, and talk about how it serves as an adaptation. As I start writing this, I still haven’t seen the movie but I plan on watching it tonight. That being said, I expect that it should be an excellent adaptation since the book was written by Stephen J. Hadden, who wrote and directed the movie back in 2009.
Where to Watch Bio-Dead (2009)
Blow by Blow
The prologue of the book reads like a shot-for-shot description of a low budget horror movie. With this in mind, it’s pretty hilarious. If this kind of self awareness is what the author was going for, then we have some really good horror meta-commentary on our hands.
For those like me, who are unfamiliar with the Bio-Dead franchise, the bulk of the story takes place after a car accident (or was it a car intentional?) releases a toxic cloud that kills basically all of Los Angeles and the surrounding area. It’s never really clear how long ago that was, but they do specify several months, so we can assume it’s less than a year. The book opens with Jackson, who used to work for The Company but is currently unemployed; as is most of the country. The one job he can manage is working on a haz-mat team whose job is to go into The Zone and photograph the dead for later identification.
Keen Eye for Characterization
The story mostly focuses on Jackson, as the reader experiences the training through his point of view and that of the main characters are the team he’s working with. We get to know all of the team members really well. Hadden does not mess around when it comes to world-building and character development. Which shouldn’t be surprising since he must have been working on this world for at least twenty years.
Hadden’s storytelling strategy is that each chapter focuses on a single member of the team, starting with their history and series of terrible choices that lead to each character ending up in The Zone. We mostly skip their training montages since it’s probably the same as Jackson, but he goes deep into their thoughts, hopes, and fears while in The Zone. The first several chapters are just Jackson and Chestor, but then we also get Graham, Ellis, and Benson as the story progresses.
This is especially effective during the main arc of the story, when Jackson’s team finds and is forced to enter the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. A building which still has power, no dead bodies, and breathable air despite no logical reason for it to be so. I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t seen the movie, but as you can imagine, in this eerily perfect setting it does not take long for fear and paranoia to set in.
Challenging Narrative
While I do appreciate this storytelling motif, it also leads to my first complaint which is that Hadden does not seem to know about scene breaks. One paragraph will often be followed by another which jumps back in time or skips ahead a few hours, without any indication that this is what’s happening. Even just an extra line in when we’re changing times or locations would be appreciated. It’s a bit tough to follow, but not a deal breaker for me.
The epilogue is the most interesting part of the story and expanding this part if the story is the book Hadden should write next. My first thought after finishing the final page was, “I just read 250-odd pages of guys making bad decisions and three pages of extremely compelling sci-fi dystopian corporate espionage.” I don’t usually say this, but man I’d love a prequel.
All the Ladies in the Place… or Lack Thereof
Another noteworthy aspect is that there are no women actually in this story after Jackson enters The Zone. Women are referred to; ex-wives, the bitchy dispatcher, or some other background characters (living or dead). Most of them are or were terrible and/or extremely sexy. Is this commentary on how horror movies treat women and feminine characters? Is it a commentary on how misogyny takes over in societal collapse? Perhaps.
Now that I’ve seen the move:
I’m trying not to turn this into a review of the movie, but I just want to let people who have seen (and presumably like) the movie know how the book compares. For those who haven’t seen the movie, it starts about halfway through the book when they find the mysterious building alluded to above. The entire movie is them investigating the building and the horror that ensues. As my husband said, “It’s like Alien in an office building, with a little bit of Saw.”
The Bio-Dead novelization gives the four main characters backstories and clarifies the world at large. My husband watched the movie with me but went in totally blind. He had several questions throughout, many of which I could only kind of answer even though I had just read the book.
I can see why Hadden wanted to write this, he obviously didn’t have enough budget to do justice to the story he wanted to tell. This is clear because the bodies being photographed in the beginning aren’t made up to look decayed at all, and The Ghoul is just a guy as opposed to the monster described in the book (to be fair, he does have some creepy The Ring-esque effects with The Ghoul.)
The end of the film just creates more questions, so I can see why Hadden chose to explain everything in the epilogue of the Bio-Dead novelization. To be honest, that was a far more interesting story and I wouldn’t mind reading a sequel (or prequel as the case may be) if he ever decides to flesh it out.